Burma says it is ready to provide humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers - its most conciliatory statement yet about the boat crisis gripping the Southeast Asia region.
The foreign ministry said Burma "shares concerns" of the international community.
It is "ready to provide humanitarian assistance to anyone who suffered in the sea", the statement published in state media says.
Burma's treatment of the impoverished and marginalised Muslim Rohingya community is widely seen as one of the root causes of the surge in migrants across the Bay of Bengal.
Nearly 3000 Rohingya from Burma and Bangladeshi migrants have made it ashore in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia in recent days after being abandoned by smugglers in open waters.
Thousands more victims are believed to be stranded at sea with scant food or water.
The Burma government initially batted away suggestions that it carried some of the responsibility for the unfolding crisis.
Wednesday's softened rhetoric comes after pressure from its neighbours as well as from within.
Burma rejects the use of the term "Rohingya", preferring to describe the estimated 1.3 million-strong group living in the country as "Bengalis" - shorthand for foreigners.
Burma denies them citizenship, among a litany of restrictions on the group, curbs their movement and is mulling divisive population control laws that could impact on the Rohingya.
AFP
source: newshub archive
